5 June 2011
A FORMER Liberal staff member and adviser to Malcolm Turnbull is spearheading a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to help the tobacco industry fight the federal government’s plain packaging reforms.
Mr Turnbull’s former press secretary Tony Barry is believed to be earning more than $20,000 a month lobbying Liberal MPs and crossbenchers against the tobacco reforms. Mr Barry is working for the Alliance of Australian Retailers, a front-group funded by the big three tobacco companies.
Mr Barry, a tough veteran of Liberal politics, is remembered in Canberra for a physical altercation he had with a press gallery journalist and an incident aired on Australian Story where he was shown checking the meaning of ”concocted” on Google amid the Godwin Grech email furore.
Mr Barry’s new job comes as his former employer, the Melbourne-based Institute of Public Affairs, refused to confirm whether it receives donations from big tobacco. The institute’s researchers have been vocal in their defence of the tobacco industry’s right to maintain brands on packets. Executive director John Roskam told The Sunday Agethe institute no longer identified its donors because they had become the target of threats.
Liberal Party sources told The Sunday Age that Mr Barry left the institute several months ago after falling out with the group. Asked about Mr Barry’s new job, Mr Roskam would only say: ”Far be it from the IPA to stand in the way of an exciting career opportunity fighting for freedom.”
Mr Barry, who is not listed on the Australian government’s lobbying register, did not respond to The Sunday Age‘s phone calls. After he and Mr Turnbull parted ways over the Australian Story episode, Mr Barry worked for Victorian Liberal senator Michael Ronaldson before taking up a position as the institute’s director of finance and development.
Mr Barry’s retainer is understood to be much less than that of the Civic Group, which Philip Morris last year paid $200,000 a month to help manage the alliance. The Civic Group, which employs former Labor and Liberal strategists, fell out with big tobacco after campaign emails were hacked.
After letting the issue simmer for months, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, a former health minister, last week said he would support the government’s legislation to remove brands from cigarette packets. He previously had said the party had no position on the legislation.
One Liberal MP, the doctor Mal Washer had threatened to cross the floor and support the legislation if his leader did not.
It has also been reported that the Liberal Party will review the donations it receives from big tobacco. The party has received $3 million from Philip Morris and British American Tobacco since 1998. Labor, which refuses money from the tobacco industry, has been criticising the opposition for its reliance on donations from big tobacco.
Staff from both sides of politics have joined big tobacco in recent years.
Last year, Ozan Ibrisim left his job as an adviser to then health minister Daniel Andrews to work for Philip Morris. Former Howard chief-of-staff Grahame Morris also lobbies for Philip Morris, while the firm Jackson Wells, which has Labor and Liberal connections, represents Imperial Tobacco